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I PLANNED to vote on Tuesday. Seriously. I even scheduled a slice of time in my day when I could get to the polling site after teaching a class and before picking up the dog from the groomer.

But . . . Saturday the literature started arriving. Four registered voters in the house meant an avalanche of fliers stuck above the mailbox, hung on the doorknob, and rubber-banded to the post at the bottom of the stairs. Then came the phone calls. With my son in Ottawa, my daughter in Los Angeles, and my husband on a work trip, I fielded them all.

First came the mechanical calls, from robots somewhere in the cloud. Then came the impersonal-sounding calls, asking for my son and daughter and husband by their first names. The first couple of calls worried me, thinking something had happened in a distant place.

Once I figured out the scam, I got mad. I decided to vote for any candidate who had not mailed, called, lawn-signed, or bumper-stickered my neighborhood. I would have voted for that candidate regardless of political affiliation.

So that is why I did not vote on Tuesday. There simply wasn’t a viable candidate who represented my political party — the Don’t Pester Me Party. The name isn’t as catchy as the Tea Party, but it just may catch on.